How I want to rewrite FFXIII (major spoilers)

[auronlu]

In discussing a mutual obsession with Sissy, I have come up with an AU plotline for Final Fantasy XIII which would've made the endgame more satisfying and fixed at least one problem that probably jumped out as a sore point for most game players, even those who are not in any way hung up on Paula Tiso.

You see, Col. Nabaat saunters in as Promisingly Evil Villain ... and then...poof. Fizzle. Pop. Her good scenes wind up on the cutting room floor, she dies without even getting in ONE good boss battle, and, indignity of all indignities, her penultimate scene is skittering around on the bridge looking helpless and silly, babbling something about red alerts and purple alerts and green with pink polka dot alerts. As I mentioned to Sissy, it's about the worst piece of scriptwriting Ms. Tiso has had to try to make convincing since "I...AM...AN...OCTOPUS!"

It's so sad. Col. Nabaat was building up to be a sexy evil mastermind, and then she gets Tasha Yar'd. After which, we're stuck with the fricking HIEROPHANT from the Tarot Deck as our chief villain for most of the game, who is teeth-grindingly irritating. As the personification of the patriarchy, his irritant factor is appropriate, but I still get so sick of him.

Then there's the endgame boss battles, in which we have to fight the Bigger Bad (a trope that has a tendency to fall flat: see, for example, Yu Yevon the Tick). First, we get this Unholy Trinity: Barthandalus the Hierophant fused with a random feminine figure who appears to resemble his hench-owl (Menrva, some sort of Clash of the Titans Athena reference), and the child, Orphan, between them. In End Battle Phase II, we kill mum and dad, and the child becomes the uholy brat from hell. Okay. So these are Fal'Cie, and they're the God/Trinity of this universe, and they're evil so we must kill God (again). Got it.

But...but...Eden. The Owl. Menrva.

We really haven't any idea what that character is like. (I'm not really sure whether they're the same character, and/or whether they're the female figure in the penultimate boss battle, but I think they/she/it is).

Barthandalus was using a human disguise, Primarch Dysley, to rule and guide the human population.

So, Colonel Nabaat should have been the human disguise for the Fal'Cie Eden, sometimes manifesting as that annoying owl. The queen on the chessboard, flying all over the place and administering whupass as needed while the Primarch stayed rooked up in his castle. (This also has the advantage that we would have Paula Tiso / Jihl, rather than Dysley, gloating at us down on the planet, since that Barthandalus scene in Oerba was about one Barthandalus scene too many.)

And that whole red alert / ultramarine alert scene was just an embarrassing case of paradox. So, let's go back in time and fix that timeline to ensure that Col. Nabaat stays true to her competent evil mastermind archetype, including a few boss battles with Paula Tiso taunting us in that way she does so well. Pretty please?

Comments

[owlmoose]

Yep, I agree. Your way would have been about a thousand times better. Nabaat is one of the worst cases of villain fizzle I have ever seen.

[leasspell_dael]

I can get behind this. While I wasn't personally invested in Nabaat, that's because she was cut down so prematurely. I love your solution, because I share your confusion over the identity of the feminine entity (I assumed it was supposed to be Eden, but had no basis for this besides the fact Eden was mentioned but never shown).

Oh god! Serah turning into Nabaat instead of Dysley in that scene in Oerba would have been so much more powerful. And Nabaat so loved playing head-games, seeing how her rats react to stimulus and getting more data... Yes. I want this.

[thene]

I pretty much dragged my Metal Gear Fan mentality into FFXIII fandom with me; Nabaat's fizzle seemed like intentional marketing trolling, and the thrust of the plot was that whatever the characters do, the Patriots still win. It would have been a better game if Orphan made more sense, or if Nabaat was trolling us for a deconstructive reason (given that most of the cast are doing so), but if she were 'true' to her archetype rather than there to rip holes in it, she wouldn't be a FFXIII character.